Posted on 04/07/2003 8:30:53 AM PDT by adamyoshida
The nation of Canada is dead (or at least dying) and perhaps it is for the best. Perhaps it was always destined to end up so. Over the last forty years Canada has become, to put it bluntly, the most fundamentally dysfunctional Western democracy. Our government does not work, our productivity is falling rapidly, and our international power and prestige has all but evaporated. Worst of all: there may be no way to save the country as a whole.
Scholars often refer to many of the worst-off African nations, usually those where international borders run across important tribal boundaries as the result of the whimsy of some mid-level bureaucrat in Paris or Brussels circa 1886, as being ‘failed states’. What this means is that the nation, thrown together in haste and conceived of either necessity or stupidity, is made up of elements far too discordant o create a unified nation. In that sense, Canada is a failed state as well.
Unlike the other English-speaking nations which were once British settler colonies (the United States, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada was not initially settled and founded by a single homogenous group of people. It was, in fact, created by two diametrically opposed groups who have a history of conflict and mutual animosity which spans nearly a thousand years: the English and the French. Given the long history of enmity between the two groups, it hardly takes a genius to conclude that forcing them to forge a single nation was an experiment highly likely to end in failure. Expecting the English and the French to work together to create a unified and prosperous nation is like asking Coke and Pepsi to jointly develop and market a cola drink.
The fact that it went pretty well for the first eighty years or so is more a reflection of the degree to which Quebec was marginalized within Confederation than the intelligence of the design. During this period English Canada called the shots and Quebec was pushed to the sidelines. If Quebec had its way, then Canada would have stayed out of both the First World War and the Second World War and developed along drastically different lines.
Old Canada was a very different place from the one we know today. It was a more British sort of place than the Canada that we know so well today. It was also sturdier, steadier, and generally better than our modern nation. Though it is impossible to blame Quebec alone for the monstrosity that is the Canada of the present day, it is hard to deny that none of this would have happened without Quebec.
In the decade since the end of the Second World War Quebec has discovered and asserted its power. Under the virtual rule of Quebec our country has become increasingly European in character. The recent decision of our Government to side with France, Germany, China, and Russia over the United States, Britain, and Australia over the issue of Iraq can hardly be described as unexpected. It was the natural consequences which have led our country onto a path which has made it one with the continent.
As I’ve said, it is hard to blame Quebec alone for all of this. After all, Quebec had never really been integrated into Canada and, as a Province made up mostly of unrepentant Frenchmen, they really had no hope of simply calming sliding into an English-speaking nation. The real culprits here are not the separatists, but the cynical politicians who used separatism to their own ends.
Quebec either should have been forced to stay or made to go. Having Quebec remain within Confederation while continuously using the threat of separation to blackmail the rest of the country has created an intolerable situation whereby most of our important policies are dictated to us by people who wish to be a foreign country and by people desperate to keep a foreign country within Canada.
It is both the Tories and the Liberals who are at fault for this. The Tories thought that they could govern by appealing to separatist sentiment without embracing it. As a result of this they were morally corrupted to the point where they were willing to push upon Canadians a constitution which would have forever given Quebec an unequally strong position within the nation. The Liberals, on the other hand, have used separatism as a club to bludgeon much of English Canada into submission by convincing them that, if they do not support the policies that they seek to adopt, the apocalypse will occur. As the inevitable result of decades of this much of English Canada has transformed to a point whereby it has become a willing auxiliary of Quebec- willing to accept abominable policies in the belief that any point is worth conceding to keep Quebec in Canada.
Canada is no longer a real nation. Ask a Canadian to define our national identity and the best things they will be able to come up with are Medicare and anti-American slogans. Our politicians busy themselves rearranging the chairs on the deck as the ship sinks. Can we save Canada? Should we?
These are questions which are particularly significant to those of us in the West. We, after all, pay the most for confederation and get the least from it. Why should we pay a vast portion of our incomes for the privilege of being ruled from what is, essentially, a foreign land? These are questions which will have to be answered, and soon.
Hand 'em each a white flag, an exit visa, and a pound (er, excuse me, a half-kilo) of Roquefort.
SO9
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